Good News For The Kids
From the Home News Tribune:
Odds that the bubble would burst? You could bet the house on it
Odds that the bubble would burst? You could bet the house on it
Sorry about that bubble, if you overpaid for your house a year ago, expecting things would turn out OK, what with housing prices increasing by double digits in recent years. Not just creeping into double digits, but reaching percentages into the 20s and 30s and beyond.
I was recently speaking to a group of people in my demographic, and we agreed on two things: Our real estate investment has made us quite wealthy — if only on paper — but we would trade much of that paper wealth if it meant our kids could afford to stay in New Jersey.
...
If housing prices kept pace with the Bureau of Labor Statistics' cost-of-living index (using the formula found at www.aier.org) new homes in South Brunswick should cost $199,444 today — opening the market to sportswriters married to part-time nurses, my three children, and the children of those friends in my demographic.
...
Recent news is encouraging — for the kids.
The National Association of Realtors recently reported a slowdown in sales. The nationwide median price for homes sold in June rose 0.9 percent, but it was the lowest year-to-year monthly gain since May 1995.
The number of homes for sale in Central Jersey is more than 20 percent higher than a year ago.
...
One reason for the relative flood of homes on the market is the thinking that this can't be happening.
"People were expecting, or maybe even anticipating, a double-digit appreciation this year, and now it turns out that extra 10 to 11 percent appreciation that didn't happen is keeping their house from moving," Stuart L. Davis of Davis Realtors in East Brunswick told Home News Tribune reporter Ken Tarbous.
What homeowners are experiencing today is what people who plunged into the stock market in the late 1990s learned: What goes up doesn't keep going up.
For several years there have been numerous stories about the "housing bubble," and they typically began: When will the housing bubble burst? The answer appears to be "Now."
43 Comments:
This marked the top.
http://www.amazon.com/
gp/product/0385514344/
002-8909592-9227248?v=glance&n=283155
Didn't you hear, we're protected by "bubblewrap". This little gem is from the Bergen Record back in October..
Tkacz and other agents interviewed by The Record believe North Jersey home prices - which were up roughly 15 percent over the 12 months ended June 30 - are protected by a sort of "bubble wrap." These factors include proximity to New York City, a shortage of undeveloped land, environmental regulations that restrain development, a steady influx of immigrants and a strong, diverse job market.
People are still spending money and seem to have a ton of cash available.
Wouldn't people need to cut back with higher gas prices & interest rates. Not in the NYC / NJ area where the consumer mentality is the greatest in the country.
Another blowout month for most retailers with sales up by double digits.
Also, rents are surging higher at some cases the greatest increase in the last 25 years. It truely is a landlords market with landlords asking for and getting 4-6 months in advance + realtors usually get a fee of 15% of the annual rent when a rental is listed by them.
{{{These factors include proximity to New York City, a shortage of undeveloped land, environmental regulations that restrain development, a steady influx of immigrants and a strong, diverse job market.}}}
Its all true + a steady influx of very wealthy young recent college grads from other parts of the country. Most make well over $100,000 a year and have unlimited financial resources from family.
Manhattan may be too expensive, but North Jersey is a bargain with apartments renting for around $2,000 a month for a one bedroom and only $400,000-$500,000 for a one bedroom condo.
This is probably responsible for most of the gentrification of the other 4 boros outside Manhattan as well.
"Another blowout month for most retailers with sales up by double digits."
Back that up with facts FIBBER.
I think things are very slow. Good luck with your propaganda. Most are on to your ilk.
Its all true + a steady influx of very wealthy young recent college grads from other parts of the country.
Please cite the source of the data this statement is based on.
grim
One factor in pricing that I don't see written about much is the general improvement of most local areas.
I house or apartment's value is partly related to the quality of the neighborhood it is in. The neighboorhoods of NYC and the local Jersey towns have gotten much better in the last decades. For example, remember when SoHo and the Lower East Side and W. 42nd Street were all bad areas? Remember when there were any bad areas in Manhattan? Likewise, remember when Hoboken looked more like Jersey City than the West Village?
I think part of the recent run up in prices has been due to a real increase in the quality of the neighborhoods.
What do you all think?
The side effect of the increase in the quality of the neighborhoods is that New York became (again) a cool place for young people to move to in the mid '90s.
I moved here in the early 90s and most people thought it was a bad idea. In their minds New York was full of crime and crackheads. Now it is a place of "Friends" and Martha Stewart. It is the big American small town.
I think this has a big effect on drawing young and wealthy people from other states and thereby boosting housing prices.
Rents have gone up... no question... but they were certainly down for a very long time... i live in hoboken and in 2000, My wife and I rented a 1br./1ba. with a nice little patio area for $1750... we moved in 2002... and we heard, thru a friend who is a real estate agent and ended up showing it to her clients, that it was on the market in 2002 for $1400... that's quite a haircut... so... who knows maybe it's back to up $1750... this is just one example of possibly a flat rental market over a 5 year period... i wish i had the data but i don't... just thought i'd share... good to all.
"The realtor said yes there is, but not in Bergen County because of the close proximity to NYC."
Classic. Wasn't Bergen close to NYC 4 years ago, when houses cost 50% less?
skep-tic,
I think NYC's transformation was probably complete by '98 or so. Guiliani had done all the good he was going to do and was starting to go after the hot dog and kebab guys out of boredom.
But this still took a while to trickle out into the national popular culture.
In retrospect I can see that my sense of housing values was too low because i moved here at the absolute bottom of the market in '93.
There are kids, and then there are kids...a friend's son graduated from law school in May, got a job with a NY Big Law firm...at $150K to start.
Went apt hunting for a rental...had to get in line behind all the other young turks who were begging to pay $3500/month for a tiny one-bedroom in one of the newer buildings.
Wall St. is booming, law firms can't hire fast enough....and yes, these kids are making six figures plus in their mid-twenties. And they all want to be in NYC.
If you think there aren't an awful lot of them, you're just moving with the wrong crowd.
Anonymous said...
8/03/2006 08:50:26 AM
"Its all true + a steady influx of very wealthy young recent college grads from other parts of the country. Most make well over $100,000 a year and have unlimited financial resources from family."
So I guess you have data from colleges across the country which supports this statement. They said the same thing in the 1924 RE crash in Fla., wealthy people were moving in from the north and all over the country, it would never go down. Oh yeah??? Read your history.
You are totally missing the point. We are discussing valuations, distorted valuations, not incomes. College grads making 100k do not in any manner support these valuations.
So you feel that a 1 bedroom condo in BC at 500k is a bargain???? If one of these college grads, making 100k bought this and mortgaged 500k, their carrying costs would be approx $4,300 mo. (30 year fixed,taxes, maint.,ins.) If a recent grad makes 8k a month, before fed/state taxes, 401k contribution, ss, disability, unemploy., how do they justify a $4,300 mo payment?? I would suggest they go back to school to learn economics 101!!!
How do they pay for their $300 bottle of Grey Goose at their private table?? I guess it would be outrageous of me even suggesting that they may have a burdensome school loan. That's silly of me, I forgot that they all came from wealthy families.
In any market nobody rings the bell to tell us the top is in. However, with comments like this I realize the horns are blasting.
Remember, it's about valuations!!!
BC Bob
No, the BC is not short for Bergen County!!!!!!!!
”The realtor was asked if there is a slowdown in the housing market. The realtor said yes there is, but not in Bergen County because of the close proximity to NYC.”
How about - ESPECIALLY because of its close proximity to NYC??
"There are kids, and then there are kids...a friend's son graduated from law school in May, got a job with a NY Big Law firm...at $150K to start."
AH-CHOO!!!
Sorry - Im allergic to BS....
AH-CHOO!!!
If you don't believe the starting salaries at NYC law firms, don't take my word for it:
http://tinyurl.com/eq9l7
Just proves that you DO move in the wrong circles...
anon at 10:16,
There are MAYBE 2000 lawyers total who get hired each year in NYC at $145,000 starting salary (which is the current top of the market).
The people coming out of B-School who make similar money to start are a similarly small, elite group.
The reality is that most young people who move to NY are not making anything close to this in their first job.
The vast majority scrape by in NYC for a couple of years with several roomates before packing it up and moving elsewhere.
Most of young lawyers and bankers end up bailing too, although their couple of years in the city are spent in comparative luxury.
Bottom line is that there are just too few of these people to prop up the entire NYC-metro market, and they are too transitory
{{The reality is that most young people who move to NY are not making anything close to this in their first job.}}}
You wouldn't know this by looking at rents & prices not only Manhattan, but the other 4 boros as well. No where else in the county outside the NYC metro area and suburbs have such stringest rental requirements either.
They wouldn't charge 15% of annual rent if people couldn't pay it.
I also read in the NY Times how some are even paying 'Over Asking Price' for rent when it is a tie between a few applications. Where does someone get $3,500 - $5,000 a month to pay for rent??
{{{{The vast majority scrape by in NYC for a couple of years with several roomates before packing it up and moving elsewhere.}}}
Where is 'Elsewhere'?? Back to the midwest, New England, North Carolina?? Most come to NY with a job offer in hand and it is a very very good job market in this area as well.
rents are high because people have roommates. in other cities, people tend to have their own places more often. parental help is also common, but for most people this doesn't last beyond a couple of years out of college.
yes, people move back to new england, florida, the south, the midwest, the west coast, foreign countries-- all over the world. there are plenty of good jobs outside of new york where the cost of living is lower.
a couple of years in the city is fun, but by then most people start to realize that living here long term will not be so fun because they will be poor.
this is how NYC's population remains relatively constant despite the fact that so many people move here each year--just as many people leave.
So what would happen to the North Jersey real estate market if the NYC job market takes a turn for the worse?
Are we at a point now, where the Northern NJ housing market is entirely dependent on the NYC jobs market?
If NYC sneezes, will Northern NJ real estate get the flu, or worse?
grim
"To much opinion and not enough data."
Yes, in yesterday's "Wall Street Bonuses" thread, our Anon friend wrote "prices are not coming down" whereby Grim posted source data illustrating prices have come down.
Opinions are no substitute for facts.
Probably a Peak Buyer, hoping not to sink too much further underwater.
Some of you people are on crack: I moved to NYC in the mid-80s (when crack was king, as it so happens). It was way better then. Now it's all so homogenized, with neighborhoods defined by the presence of their own Gaps and Ann Taylors. There's no spontaneous street culture, no cheap thrills, little appreciation for creative forms of individual expression; folks are largely typecast, and willingly so--and that includes the DUMBO/Williamsburg hipsters who, fifteen years ago, would have settled east of Bowery and south of St. Marks. Hell, even CBGB is packing its bags and moving to a more authentic locale: Las Vegas.
NYC's still a magical place, but it's hard to live there now, having experienced the place when it was still under the thrall of the likes of Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Thurston Moore, and Sukhreet Gabel.
Naturally, back then, folks said the same thing to me, only it was about how far the place had slid since Mudd and Max's Kansas City.
-Jamey
Jamey and NJGal,
Thanks for taking the time to type those up. Fantastic comments from the both of you.
grim
Manhattan may be too expensive, but North Jersey is a bargain with apartments renting for around $2,000 a month for a one bedroom and only $400,000-$500,000 for a one bedroom condo.
Are you fscking MAD? $2000/mo for a 1br a bargain?!? I'm paying $1200 for a 3br/2ba with all mod cons + central air in DE, and my salary's the same as it was in NYC (better if you factor in the lower costs of EVERYTHING and lower income taxes)...
If you're working a backoffice job in the NYC metro area, you better start gettin ready to relocate, if you're lucky enough to have a job that can't be reliably sent to India...
-Jamey
8/03/2006 11:53:46 AM
I agree with you. I said it yesterday "bleached and whitewashed".
Delford,
You are right, there are a lot of posts stating that this isn't as bad as thought. What calculation are they making???? "This isn't as bad"???? Hell, we haven't started yet!!!!!!! This is mile 1 of a 26 mile marathon.This will not be like a stock market crash, happen in one day. Although this crash will be much more severe than any in history, it will be more like Chinese water torture. It will be a slow, painful slide. It's just a trickle now,wait for the flood!!!!
Also, does anybody what these law firms are gearing up for??? It's not corporate corruption, we've seen that. No, these firms are like sharks and they are starting to see the blood that has been/is created by this industry . The next great legal battle will be waged against the RE industry; brokers,appraisers,lenders,etc.... It is already brewing. This bloodbath will make the Enron's, World-Com's and Tyco's look like grade school.
PATIENCE,PATIENCE,PATIENCE
BC Bob
All:
can we just agree that current housing conditions are unstable and unsustainable?
we are in a bad situation that is rife with distortions
we are irritated, because things feel uncomfortable and chaotic
we are beginning the process of moving back to something more appropriate that will serve the majority
NO PAIN = NO PAIN
BTW - I recall reading in March 1999 a research report from Morgan Stanley, discussing valuations "....people have concerns about xxxx because of interest rates. We strongly believe [NOTE: xxxx was a major client] that interest are no longer relevent to their business model, and as such, valuations...."
(&#%+&#%(*&#$+(@$*#
Also - I have to find a way to tell this couple who want to retire at the end of the year:
#1 sell your home so you can pay your bills
#2 stop spending so much money
#3 work until the day you drop dead
I don't know if I can do it.
Jamey and Chi-Fi,
I miss the creative New York too, but "bleached and whitewashed" is what raises property values. No one pays extra to live next to Joey Ramone ;)
"Believe me, I'm the law game, and using the starting salaries of young lawyers to justify housing prices is plain stupid. There aren't enough of them going around, most aren't flush with enough cash to buy a 650K one bedroom, nor do they have time. Half will leave that life soon enough anyway for jobs in which they'll take paycuts."
Absolutely... A little perspective:
Guilani *cleaned* up this city to make livable for young families. Many newly married couples in the 80s-early 90s left the NYC area for a better quality of life. It was in the mid 90s that families decided to stay and enjoy the city life. This explains the change that took place in Chelsea, EV, and certain parts of Brooklyn. It were these couples that had the money and numbers to change whole neighborhoods.
Of course, things changed after 2001, and then the replacement of the stock bubble with the RE bubble. And a bubble fueled by debt. That is the sole reason for our current situation.
It is fundamentally unsound for a property (a 1 BR 1,500sq ft loft) in the "gold coast" of NYC to sell for $180,000 in 1994 and then be priced at $1,000 a sq ft today for ~$1.5 million. You can't explain this run-up in pricing simply on the cool factor of living in NYC for the young people.
It is fundamentally unsound for a neighborhood like Harlem to be gentrified from the top down (which goes against historic trends in this city - each strong neighborhood in NYC has been built from the bottom up, whether the UES, WV, EV, Chelsea, UWS). You can't just build luxury condos in poor neighborhoods and then automatically expect the area to gentrified by force of money.
And as far as the increase in rents and pricing are concerned - all of these are due to the easy money policy of the fed.
I know in my building (and in many other buildings in NYC) the majority of the young people renting have their rent paid for by their parents. In areas like the EV, schools like NYU has a big influence on rental pricing. Understand that for a parent the cost of funding their children's education in NYC is steep - $50,000-70,000 a year, including rent. Where is all this money coming from? It comes ffrom the *wealth* creation by the RE bubble. When parents are unable to borrow against the value of their primary residence for their children's education, NY will take a hit.
As far as lawyers are concerned - most of the junior associates that I know are very unhappy. And now that partnership is on a 10 year track instead of the 6-8 year track it was before, the wait has become too long for most people. Some will take a pay cut to leave this city for a better life. The allure of this city has run thin; it was all right when things were cheap across the board, but now that everything is up its not that chic anymore. Data reports that NYC is losing population, not gaining.
And once the economy contracts because homeowners and rental debtors have exausted their piggybank of easy credit-this will have a resounding affect on the financial sector, starting with WS. Once 2007 rolls around, you will start seeing job loss in NYC.
And this will be moment when people get caught off guard, because no one expects massive job losses in NYC.
Also, rents are surging higher at some cases the greatest increase in the last 25 years. It truely is a landlords market with landlords asking for and getting 4-6 months in advance + realtors usually get a fee of 15% of the annual rent when a rental is listed by them.
Technically, the landlord cannot ask for 4-6 months of rent in advance. However, I am sure there are plenty of idiots out there who think this is acceptable.
Bubblewrap and KY so good together!
Classic. Wasn't Bergen close to NYC 4 years ago, when houses cost 50% less?
Due to the plates shifting in the earth, Bergen is now 2 inches closure.
Ran into a realtor I once had a show me a house two years ago. She is a "part-time" cashier at Shop Rite. Probably better there then super-sizing it somewhere else.
If you're working a backoffice job in the NYC metro area, you better start gettin ready to relocate, if you're lucky enough to have a job that can't be reliably sent to India...
It's not just financials! I am a consultant who helps large companies outsource and insurance is going to Uganda! Call Centers to Mexico, and It development to China.
Say goodbye to your standard of living!!!!!
Anonymous said...
8/03/2006 01:04:06 PM
Great Post!!!!!!!! Yeah, I guess I am old school, at least 20% down payment and 28/36% expense ratio.
BC Bob
1:28.. as luck would have it I'm with a firm that tried outsourcing infrastructure and got burned hard, so they ended up reversing their plans and just relocating stuff out of NYC. Our datacenter down here is doubling and will probably double again in the next 2-3 years as more moves down from NYC. Basically anything that isn't revenue-generating or customer-facing is under threat of outsourcing, the only hope is that the outsourcing goes to lowtaxland instead of offshore.
Grim:
Your thanks is high praise. It's the least I could do, considering how thorough, moderate, and useful this blog is--and that's also true of most of its contributors. (Can I get a 'boooyaaa' from the congregation??
NJGal and yours truly singled out together? Careful: That's how rumors get started...
-Jamey
NJ Gal:
Nor my wife ;)
(oops--that "Nor my wife" retort should have been tagged.)
-Jamey
"So what would happen to the North Jersey real estate market if the NYC job market takes a turn for the worse?
Are we at a point now, where the Northern NJ housing market is entirely dependent on the NYC jobs market?
If NYC sneezes, will Northern NJ real estate get the flu, or worse?
grim"
Hey its not such a bad thing, maybe than people that work in NJ can afford to live in NJ. The one thing I dispise in NJ, even where I live in central NJ, they throw a bus in here that goes to NYC...Easy commute to NYC and jack prices up through the roof. Anyone who is willing to sit on a bus for 1 hour and 30 minutes is an iditot. I think we should send all the people that work in NYC packing back there. We don't need New Yorkers here, NJ has done fine without them. Think about it for a minute....
Most people that commuted from NJ primarly live in Bergen and Hudson counties. Some in Morris and Somerset counties too. Now over the past few years they have influxed here like a diease. Built all there mega mansions everywhere(So right there more taxes for the government) and yet property tax are sky high, 7% tax...And yet even with all this new found money, they had to scrounge to get money for the budget . So All that tells me is this influx of New Yorkers has been a big factor in the falling apart of NJ.
And we have a guy who worked on Wall Street running this state now. NJ is even more doomed than it is right now.
The only thing NYC folk have done is made NJ a terrible/Extremly road aggresive state. Yes NJ always had aggresive drivers, but you can tell a Moron that works in NYC. THere the ones when you beep at them cause there going to hit you and they just keep coming, and you have to swerve out of the way. I used to commute to Morristown NJ and almost got hit by these idiots 2-3 times a week. And I stayed in the slow lane and did 65 go figure.
So I think election time we should vote "If you live in NJ you must work in NJ" If you work in any other state you cannot live in NJ.
People of NJ need to fight and take back our state from these crummy New Yorkers. Lets get our Horn Hats on and go pillaging :)
anon 01:04:06 PM,
Yee, I like the way you think.
SAS
Post a Comment
<< Home